Gold and the Real Yield: Two Channels, Opposite Signs
Gold gives up the real yield on a Treasury bond, but not every buyer holds it as a rival to one. Two channels with opposite signs, and what would be consistent with each.
Read →The 4xForecaster Blog
Research, framework, and analysis posts from the team behind the FX Monitor and CbRates monitor.
The Euro's Energy Bill
Europe buys most of its energy abroad and pays for most of its oil in dollars. What that does to the euro area's terms of trade, who ends up paying the bill, and why the exchange rate does not simply follow the oil price.
Read →Why This Site Keeps a Record It Does Not Advertise
Every directional call the FX Monitor publishes is written down before its outcome and graded later by a fixed rule. What the record is for, how it is kept, and why it carries no claim yet.
Read →What the Watch Board Is Showing You
Every row on E.A.G.L.E. Watch is a status pill and a line of dots. What each word means, what the page will never show, and how to read a change when one arrives.
Read →The Shape of the Oil Curve, Not Its Price
Backwardation and contango say something an oil price cannot: whether the market is short of barrels now. Why the monitor publishes a curve state beside a price.
Read →The Two Faces of Gold: Reading the Hedge Under Dollar Stress
Gold crashed in 2008 and March 2020 — exactly when the hedge 'should' work. Dollar shortage and dollar debasement are different stresses, and gold reads each differently.
Read →Gold Versus Everything: Relative Strength as a Regime Instrument
A price is a fraction. Gold versus copper, equities, and the dollar turns one noisy level into regime instruments that cancel the denominator.
Read →Why Gold Joined the Framework
Gold pays no coupon and answers to no issuer. That is precisely what makes it a readout on the system itself — and why the framework now tracks it.
Read →First Light: Why the Asian Session Speaks Before Europe and New York
Asia trades first. By the time Europe opens and New York wakes, the overnight session has already voted. How to read the chronology of stress — and its limits.
Read →The Transmission Chain Goes East: Introducing the Asian Stress Monitor
The transmission chain now begins where the trading day begins. Introducing the Asian Stress monitor: three tiers, explicit tripwires, and a deterministic state ladder.
Read →Reading the Transmission Chain: A Monitor Walkthrough
The FX Monitor presents a layered transmission chain from global risk to currency bias. Here is how each layer connects to the next, and how to read the signals in sequence.
Read →20 Central Banks, One Monitor
The CbRates monitor tracks rate decisions, bilateral differentials, real rates, and carry opportunities across 20 central banks in real time. Here is how to use it.
Read →The 90% Carry Trade: What Global Volatility Does to Returns
Menkhoff et al. (2012) find that a global FX volatility factor captures more than 90% of the cross-sectional excess returns in five carry trade portfolios. What that one factor is, and what it is not.
Read →What Changed for Exchange Rate Models, and What Did Not
Models fit the dollar far better than they did in 1983, and Engel and Wu tie that to inflation targeting. But fitting is not forecasting, and the out-of-sample evidence is narrower.
Read →The Lab Is Open
The FX Monitor is live. The CbRates monitor is live. Here is what we built, why we built it, and where it goes next.
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